


Dragons Are Afraid of You

by queenofchildren



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Romance, i know the fairytale thing's been done before but i had to, not your parents' fairytale, you know Bellamy is a great storyteller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-22
Updated: 2014-11-22
Packaged: 2018-02-26 14:58:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2656217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofchildren/pseuds/queenofchildren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They had all heard the stories as children, the fairytales from Earth Before of knights and dragons and princesses. Tales on the ground are different: Bellamy's princess slays foes like dragons and runs with fire in her eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dragons Are Afraid of You

_in this story, you are free and terrifying._

_in this story, you get away._

_in this story, you bleed._

_in this story, you survive._

 

Clarke remembers her father telling her bedtime stories, tales from a time when their ancestors still lived on an earth not ravaged by war: Fairytales of beautiful princesses who were captured by dragons or cursed by witches, only to be rescued by courageous knights they would then fall in love with. As a little girl, she relished those stories, before the omnipresent grey of the Ark made it difficult to imagine the colours in them. She turned her attention to medical books, marvelling at the intricacies of the human body instead of the achievements of its imagination. She has since learned much more – about bodies, plants, people, societies. But she's never forgotten her father's stories.

***  

The stories Bellamy tells the children of Camp Jaha when they manage to talk him into it are different. There are no dragons and witches in them. His knights are not gallant, they're dirty and bloody and desperate. The only castle is underground and inhabited by villains, and there are monsters in the woods and the waters. People are cowardly as often as they are courageous, and no conflict is ever as simple as good versus evil.

There is a princess, but she too is different from the princesses of old. It's not a witch who locks her away but the people of the sky and the earth. She keeps finding ways to free herself without waiting for a knight, and sometimes it is her who saves him. She's a healer and a lawmaker and she's not afraid to make the tough decisions. She's brave and strong and selfless, but she's also bossy and a little uptight, and the voice impression Bellamy does of her has the kids in stitches. The princess who demands the best of everyone is not just comic relief, though, Clarke finds out when she sits down to listen to the rest of the story that is not quite a fairytale.

Bellamy's princess is terrifying; brutal when she needs to be. She fights with everything she has: her sharp mind and her bare hands, her surgery tools and her enemies' bones. She has blood on her hands and love in her heart; she slays foes like dragons and runs for her life; she wills herself to survive and save everyone else and she does, with nightmares and bruises and fire in her eyes.

*** 

Later, when the kids have been sent off to bed, Clarke mentions her father's bedtime stories, where the only thing a princess had to be was beautiful.

His smile is bright and only a little bit mocking.

“Who said my princess wasn't beautiful?”

And in the end this princess, too, falls in love with her knight, who is braver than he thinks and who does rescue her, in a way.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I know it's been done before, but I just had to write my own short take on the princess/fairytale angle.  
> Quote and inspiration from Caitlyn Siehl's poem 'in this story', which fits Clarke so perfectly I found it hard to choose just a few lines. I'm only now starting to wonder if Bellamy could be the dragon.  
> Also, I don't really believe Jake Griffin would have given his daughter no better role models than pretty princesses, but let's just assume it was a phase in little Clarke's childhood, followed by the 'badass feminist rolemodels'-phase.


End file.
